Colleen Cason: Former first lady Barbara Bush's pearls of wisdom hold their luster

Barbara Bush was remembered as the "First Lady of the greatest generation" during a funeral Saturday attended by hundreds who filled the church with laughter as much as tears, with many recalling her quick wit and devotion to family. (April 21)
AP

It’s hard to picture Barbara Bush without seeing her trademark triple strand of pearls. But what I will remember best about the former first lady is not the necklace but the pearls of wisdom she offered to the Pepperdine University Class of 1992.

Mrs. Bush died almost 28 years to the day after she stood before graduates on the Malibu campus to deliver the commencement address.

Back then, I served as a public information officer at the seaside university. During my time at the ’Dine, her husband and then-President George H.W. Bush made a stopover on campus. His military helicopter touched down as he was en route to Los Angeles. Mr. Bush dashed out of the chopper to shake hands with a starstruck gaggle of undergrads.

The only thing that appeared threatening on campus that day was a sudden incursion of street people. I figured these were the Secret Service’s Los Angeles crew and someone forgot to tell them the dress code for the largely affluent student body did not include raggedy Army jackets and droopy felt hats.

Mrs. Bush was the real deal, though. With her grandmotherly white hair and fuller figure, she might have lacked the fashion sense of her predecessor, Nancy Reagan, but she wore self-deprecating humor well. Only the second woman in American history to be the wife and the mother of a president, she raised five children in dozens of cities — briefly in Ventura in the late 1940s.

I can’t remember why she said “yes” to Pepperdine when every institution of advanced education in America from Ivy League to barber college no doubt extended her an invitation. But I do remember a meeting with a member of her advance team who scouted the campus ahead of the speech.

The university staff wanted the first lady’s every need met. She was, after all, a rock star of the commencement circuit after she spoke to Wellesley College’s 1990 graduates. Although initially met by protests, that address went on to rank No. 45 in American Rhetoric’s “Top 100 Speeches of the 20th Century,” just below legendary orator William Jennings Bryan and a notch above John Kennedy’s civil-rights address.

She turned around the feminists who opposed her appearance by pointing out someone in the audience that day may well preside over the White House as the president’s spouse. “And I wish him well,” she said.

Divas may demand bottles of Dom Perignon and bowls of monochromatic M&Ms, though I seem to remember Mrs. Bush required only a box of tissues.

Her advance team explained that their boss was anything but a fussbudget. I hope the Bush family will forgive me if I remember this wrong, but I seem to recall a staffer saying the grandkids actually roller skated in the kitchen of the family’s Maine retreat and Mrs. Bush “didn’t care.”

So it was no surprise when the first lady quoted during her speech the single most important piece of advice she gleaned about parenting from a mother of 11: “If your child wants to lick the beater on the mixer, shut off the motor before you give it to him.”

Not mixed, however, was her message. The vision of success she offered ran counter to that of the careerist, “greed is good” early ’90s. Instead, she promised the grads despite the messiness, frustration and sacrifice what will matter most is being there for their families.

I was working this event accommodating news media requests and have to admit only later did I read the speech in its entirety.

But at one point, she said something that stopped me in my tracks: “At the end of your life, you will never regret …” I heard her say. I listened as she continued, “… not having passed one more test, winning one more verdict or closing one more deal. But you will regret time not spent with a husband, a child, a parent or a friend.”

A lump formed in my throat, the way it can when you sense you’ve heard the truth. I was then recently married and had taken on the role of stepmother to a boy I love dearly. But time and money were short, and I felt unequipped for the task.

In the years that followed, I often heard in my head the words Barbara Bush spoke on that April day. They got me through some tough times.

Graduation speakers who have even an ounce of humility must wonder if anyone heard what they had to say. Mrs. Bush, I can assure you, you did not cast your pearls before swine.